Planning

It's better to plan your work long before the Festival. Organization is a long, difficult, multi-facet process and one is to plan it thoroughly. If it's your first Festival, choose just some most important work-points and do your best to realize your plans on them. When you'll have more experience of organization, you may "widen the frames" of your Festival. Festivals is something "growing" together with you, isn't it?

When you are to start to plan your Festival depends on its scale. A festival with more than 300 participants one must start to plan a year before. If your Festival won't be as big as that, you can start planning 3 months before it is to take place.

General points

• hold the meeting of your preparatory team, try to explain:

1. why are you going to organize the Festival
2. what kind of festival are you going to organize
3. what for (goals)
4. for whom (participants)

• Choose the responsible persons for the each point of your plan.

Draft program

Put down the draft variant of the program. Mark the time of the Festival duration of all the parts of the program (presentations, concerts etc), all the responsible persons. Remember, that program is your most important document, - then you'll work according to it.

You must decide:

• what kind of Festival you'll organize: with (1)only by-stand- presentations or (2)with languages presentation executed by "teachers" (or, perhaps, you'll find out a new kind of your own?)
• how many language presentation you'll manage to organize (for (2)
• if you are going to organize concerts during the Festival? If yes, how many and what concerts those will be?
• what competitions and quizzes you are going to have,
• if you are going to hold meetings with some "honor" guests of the Festival
• what exhibitions there'll be during the Festival,
• if you are planning to arrange some special meeting (perhaps a kind of a party?) for the organizers, guests and "language teachers" of the Festival

Place

It's necessary to find a good place for the Festival. Only after you've found the right place you can put down the definite variant of the program, as well as the budget. In order to search for the place, you can ask for help at the local educational establishments (schools, universities, cultural centers. colleges etc). There you may find everything ready for the Festival: rooms, blackboards, cassette- and video -recorders, etc. If you are going to organize a "stand"- Festival, you can do eat just out-of doors, in some square or something like that.

Teachers

Start to look for the "teachers" for the Festival (or for the "stand-guiders"). Some of your team must do that work constantly. but all the others must help him as well. Those,, who search for the "teachers" must also:

• deal with all the needs of the found "teachers" (e.g.: they must do their best to provide a teacher with all he/she needs (from chalk and paper up to the cassette-recorder)
• elaborate the time-table of the presentations
• organize the preliminary meeting of the teachers, explain to them the goals and the structure of the Festival, serve as the advisers (there are a lot of questions coming from the teachers: how it is better to arrange the presentation materials, how to attract more visitors for the presentation, what to do during the solemn inauguration, how it is better to present the language and so on)

Those working with the "teachers: have, perhaps, the most interesting task of all. They come in contact with the representatives of different nationalities and cultures, make acquaintance with interesting persons and experience how wonderful it is to find something new and unknown about the multicolored world.

Information

Materials

Get ready with the informational letters about the Festival right after you put down the draft program.

There must be informational letters/advertisements:

• for local potential participants,
• for potential participants from other places (with the indication of all the conditions and prices)

Prepare informational letters/advertisements::

• for the institutions with which you are going to collaborate (embassies, universities, cultural centers). It's necessary to mention what you expect them to do, and what kind of collaboration you would like to have
• for the potential special guests of the Festival. Offer them at once the draft program of their visit (interviews and meetings with journalists, with local official authorities, planned excursions etc (all depends on what kind of person your guest is)

Send the draft program together with all the other information on the festival to the already mentioned "addresses".

Your task is also to design the posters-advertisements about the Festival. They mustn't be multicolored. Their task is to give full and attractive information on the topic. So, try to put on them full and precise information: date, time, place, some main points of the program, how many languages there will be presented (this fact attracts at once), who will be the guest of the Festival and so on.

Mass media and PR

It's really very difficult to "find a way" to the mass media. Still it's important in order not to spend out too much time, but have as the result well-informed audience. So, you must learn the modern means of PR (Public Relations)

Informational sponsors

Try to find some informational sponsors:

• some radio,
• some newspaper ,
• some local TV.

What you are interested in is their audience. It's better if that audience is teenagers or young people. (cause they are the potential participants of the Festival, aren't they?):

1. look for such newspaper (radio, TV) which have some programs/journalists dealing with the problems of education, intercultural learning, languages, youth's problems etc. They are always in need of some actual information on those topics and you can provide them with really catching and extraordinary information, which can be interesting even to common people.
2. Try to organize together with you sponsor some topical programs, interviews with the teachers of the Festival, some interesting persons, whose life is closely related to languages, with some representatives of the LF-team. You may as well organize some quizzes on some cultural topics for the audience, and offer (as a prize for the winner) tickets for your LF
3. If you are to have some famous guest, try to organize a briefing with him before or during the Festival. If your guest is a really interesting person, representatives of mass- media won't loose the take part in the briefing. Then they'll communicate their impressions to the audience.
4. Invite journalists to the Festival. Give them all the necessary information for them not to find out then some incredible facts (make their work easier and spread out the information you are interested in). LF has important educational as well as social significance! Try to convince them that it is so! Emphasize, that LF has no commercial goals and ask the journalists to help to inform about it (but NOT to advertise it!)
5. Of course, mass media is a great help for you, but if you have enough money, then use the methods and remedies of PR (Public Relations). Come in contact with local educational authorities and ask them to inform schools, colleges, universities of the unique possibility to take part in the Language Festival. If they refuse to help, then come in contact with all the mentioned establishments yourself.

Preliminary program

Preliminary program is one of the efficient methods to spread out the information on the Festival. During that program you may hold meetings with representatives and guests of the Festival at local schools, universities; held competitions and quizzes at schools or in local newspapers. In such a way you may quickly attract attention to your LF.

Finances

Language Festivals are not commercial projects. That can be a problem for organizers (lack of money), but that can be a great help, too. (teachers, collaborating associations, mass media etc help more willingly to not-commercial projects). In any case: you'll need money to organize the Festival. So, be ready for expenses and try to find some sources of subsidies.

Different Festivals with different financial backgrounds.

• Toulouse, France: subsidies from the local authorities
• Tours, France: self-financing
• Russia, Cheboksary: self-financing (tickets are sold at a small price)
• Juvaskula Finnland: subsidies
• Brussel, Belgium,: self-financing (they are to pay to have the right to have a stand during the Festival).
• Luxembourg: subsidies from the local authorities

Budget

Your most important expenses will be:

• renting a place,
• advertising
• concert equipment
• presents for collaborators (of course, they worked gratis, but still you must appreciate their work)
• accepting of the quests (often you must recompense their voyage-expenses, as well at the expenses on logistics)
• presents for the winner of various festival competitions
• dinner (party) for all the collaborators and guests( (food, drinks, service)
• copying, pens, paper, place-decorating and so on
• recompenses for phone and fax-calls
• excursion, transportation

Your income may be :

• tickets (even if the ticket price is a very symbolic one, you may gain, if you have a lot of participants)
• boutique (editions, books, learn materials, some souvenirs)
• Festival cafe

Potential sources of subsidies:

• subsidies from the local authorities
• sponsors
• finances from the association - coordinator of the Festival

How to spare money:

Place

• organize the Festival at some establishment of education. Festival may be put into the work plan of that institution and be presented as their own initiative.
• Instead of paying the rent, give a lot of the tickets for the Festival for pupils/students of that establishment. You'll gain in any case, 'cause in such a way you provide your Festival with the participants.

Information/advertising

Use the methods of PR. Emphasize, that you need to inform of the socially valuable activity,but not the advertisement of some commercial project.

Presents for the collaborators

Some of organization which collaborate with you can give you something: books, vocabularies, T-shirts.

Acceptation of guests

Try to invite guests from the organizations which are ready to recompense self all the expenses.

Dinner (party) for all the collaborators and guests( (food, drinks, service)

Don't organize something too great. Let it be just a coffee-party (coffee, tee, some biscuits). Remember, that it is far more important to have a warm atmosphere there as well as an interesting program. Than everybody will remember it.

Pens, paper, copying, decorating of the place

Ask for help from organizations-collaborators. Or, look for sponsors which can't give you money in cash, but are ready to provide you with some useful things (as paper, for example)

Recompense for calls

Ask the collaborating organizations for the possibility to use their means of communication

Transportation

Try to find collaborators with a vehicle of their own and recompense only expenses on fuel.

Collaboration with the other organizations

Don't do everything alone. Show, that you and your association are ready to work both for the society and with the society. Don't be closed. Keep contacts with anybody who can help, even if only potentially.

Embassies

In order to find "teachers: and interesting guests for the Festival, send invitations for the embassies. If some representative of the Embassy visits your Festival, it'll give it a higher status. Embassies may also be a help in providing contacts with the local cultural centers and sending informative materials on the country and language concerned.

Universities

It's necessary to collaborate with local universities. They must support and they support activities with the educational goals. They have keep contacts with the other institutions which can help you. Universities can inform their students of your Festival, provide some presents for the "teachers", help to organize some exhibitions.

Associations of interpreters and teachers

That's a good source to find some "teachers" and collaborators for the Festival!

Cultural centers, libraries

There you can find not only collaborators and language representatives, but some useful materials (books, journals, magazines on cultural topics, etc)

Dance and song-circles

Usually they help willingly to organize the concerts.

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